


Stuck With You

by CheerfullyCynical



Series: Communication [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Feelings, Inspired by a post on tumblr, Thirteen and the Master talk some stuff out, about how Thirteen just didn't understand how it "wasn't a game" anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26691877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerfullyCynical/pseuds/CheerfullyCynical
Summary: Roughly a year after the whole Judoon prison stint, the Doctor and the Master somehow get arrested together.Talking happens... Bringing feelings that should have probably stayed in the past.
Relationships: The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: Communication [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1961749
Comments: 7
Kudos: 51





	Stuck With You

“You are the most stubborn-”

“- _Stubborn!_ You were the one that refused to bow to the Princess-”

“-Idiotic, bleeding heart _fool_ that has ever had the audacity to exist! Honestly, _bowing-”_

“-A Princess that, at the very least, should think that we’re common nobles -”

“- _Common?_ Please, my dear, in that thing you call an outfit? How _do_ you get away with-”

“Do you ever-”

“Would the two of you,” The guard, a rather nervous-looking boy, practically begged, “Please - _please_ be quiet? Listen, the next guard? You _don’t_ wanna make him mad.”

The Master laughed – _laughed._ “Then I simply can not wait to meet this man.”

The boy stared at the Master, visibly shaking. The Doctor couldn’t blame him. After all, the Master’s literally wicked smile had no doubt left stronger man quaking. Still, she found herself groaning when the boy turned and left, running down the empty rows of cells as he most certainly went to fetch the other guard.

“Now look what you did,” She complained, “Would it have killed you to be just a _little_ nice. We could have convinced him to help us!”

“Him?” The Master scoffed, “Please, he’d never betray his precious empire. It’s no wonder this little planet is war-stricken in two more years and gone in another five.”

The Doctor, in an act too childish to call proper, yanked her arm to the left, watching as the chain that connected her to him dragged his own hand across his face in a small slap. She raised her eyebrow at him as he glared at her. He looked ready to strangle her with the very chain that kept them tied together.

“If we don’t find a way out of this,” The Master said coldly, “I will make sure your next regeneration won’t see the sun.”

She knew that reacting to his words was never safe with him – he always had a way of hitting her exactly where it hurt. Him, mentioning regenerations to her after revealing her as the Timeless Child, was far too much to deal with.

The Doctor looked away from his eyes, huffing. A moment passed, painful and chilled, and the Doctor, to her horror, felt tears come to her eyes.

“I never wanted this.”

The words escaped her mouth before she had any control of it. She turned away from him, just enough to hide her face from view, considering the length of the chain, and said nothing as he didn’t react to the words. She didn’t need _his_ words of comfort – they only ever brought pain. 

Missy came to her mind in that moment. She imagined her eyes rather than the Master in front of her – selfishly. She imagined Missy scolding her sentimentality, a sparkle of amusement and fondness mixed with her words. Their old friendship – partnership – blossomed day by day in the vault. She wondered how damning the Timeless Child was to their progress.

“ _I_ never wanted this.”

The Doctor startled. The Master’s voice had never been so calm. She looked towards him, watching closely as he refused to meet her eyes. Instead, they were firmly on the wall in front of him, never moving. His entire body was tense.

She looked away too, feeling irony against her skin like a winter’s breeze. How they had ended up _here,_ only a year after their last and final time on Gallifrey, she would never know. The Master had once said to her that the universe played tricks on him… She was starting to believe him.

She shivered. The Master was right again – her usual rainbow outfit, while it made her feel better than it had in months, did nothing against this planet’s chill. It was what the human’s would call winter, and she _knew_ that before she left her TARDIS, but it seemed redundant to change since she thought she would be in the beautiful, heated library most of the time.

The Master groaned loudly. Before she could say a word, he was throwing his winter coat off, sliding it inside out to pass if over the chain. In shock, she found herself unmoving, forced to watch as he rolled his eyes at her, placing the jacket around her back and across her shoulders.

“Thank you.”

He grunted in response – huffed, really. He was too posh (always too stylish) to make such a sound. Still, the small kindness had left her feeling lighter than she had before. Without thinking, she moved closer to him, offering as much body heat as she could.

To his credit, he didn’t move away from her.

Eventually, they found themselves leaning fully on each other, their backs to the wall behind them. Her head had found his shoulder, and his head to the top of hers. It was a faux image to their inside world, but real enough civility to have the infamous guard the boy spoke of to leave them alone.

They said nothing for a while. They had exhausted themselves with their latest stint in Gallifrey and only further proved their lack of conversation skills from their last confession. To start something else would be to incite war.

But the Master was always one for chaos.

“How did it feel,” He asked, the light from the candle outside in the hallway long out, “to learn of your past?”

She didn’t, or refused, to hear the ever-present rage he so often fought when he discussed things he wished to destroy. Instead, all that was left was the aching loneliness she knew intimately.

“You called yourself more,” He continued, “But I knew you didn’t mean it. You couldn’t of – it’s always misplaced bravado when you’ve got playthings to save.”

She hated him.

“Come on,” He whispered, and his head felt heavy against hers, “ _Tell me.”_

“I can still feel it,” She admitted, whispering the words in the dark, “The paralysis field. I would wake up in that Judoon prison, frozen…”

His entire body went still – even his shoulder dug into the side of her head.

“But it wasn’t the paralysis field, was it?” She continued, “It was _me –_ all the things my past selves have done. What mistakes have I made? What ones will find me again?” She laughed, but it was empty, “I’ve made enough mistakes in my last regenerations… The ones I remember… That armies turned away at my very name.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Funny, how her entire body could be melted against him when her mind was in uproar over his words.

“That’s what you got out of that?” He asked her, laughing shrilly, “That – that you have more unredeemable sins to be regretful for?”

Anger boiled over inside of her. Finally, she gained the strength to move off of him. “You don’t get to tell me how I feel.”

“Don’t I though?” He asked, and in the dim light his smile gleamed, “I was one of your _sins,_ wasn’t I? One of your mistakes?”

“No,” She denied, “You were never-”

“Please, spare us the lecture, dear. The only reason you kept me in that dreadful vault was to _fix_ me. I-”

“I didn’t want to _fix_ you!” She said, shocked to find that he had that opinion, “I wanted to _help_ you! You – you deserved another chance – you always have! Imagine the things you could do if you turned your mind towards helping those around you! And-!”

“You don’t get to decide who I am!”

He looked shocked by his own words. It was obviously said out of true anger, the kind that pulled truth out of desperate people. Even worse was that it showed how bitter he was about her – about what she had tried to do to him.

_About what she had tried to do to him._

Is that what she had done – why he found himself even more broken when he learned about her past? While she was trying to teach him “good”, she instead taught self-hatred.

Just as Gallifrey had done to her.

It was enough to make her nauseous. The pit in her stomach was indescribable – worse than grief, worse than loneliness. She would have rather regenerated then come to this… _conclusion._ She wondered how awful it would have been for both their endings to be on Gallifrey that day… If she had pushed that trigger.

The Doctor knew an apology wouldn’t be enough. Nothing would be. Instead, she found herself silent as they both shivered against the cold stone of the cell.

Hours passed in deadly silence. She knew that soon enough someone would fetch them to put them on trial. She doubted that not bowing to the princess was enough for something drastic, but she didn’t know how long she would last in a cell with her greatest mistake.

Sure enough, the boy from before arrived. He looked shocked as they both peacefully rose up from the ground, but going the way his shoulders dropped, he was relieved. “Glad to see you two are getting along,” He said, trying to be friendly as he opened the cell door, “I was _really-”_

The Master’s had was around the boy’s wrist before the Doctor could even think to stop him. In a blink, the boy fell to the ground, and the Doctor was forced to awkwardly catch him with her left arm. Honestly, she expected a more violent approach, but this seemed a happy medium.

“Come on, then.” The Master said, rolling his eyes as she made sure the boy’s head didn’t bang against the hard ground.

He went first. She tried to follow behind him, not exactly content with the idea of walking shoulder to shoulder, but it proved impossible by his long strides. Their arms pulled awkwardly away every minute or so, even as they snuck around guards, and she could visibly see the Master losing his patience with her.

He lost it when she made some sort of glass looking thing drop to the ground, causing them to rush back from the way they had come, the voice of a guard calling “who’s there?” almost blowing their escape attempt.

“Just-!”

He grabbed at her hand, wrapping their fingers together tightly, and pulled her along roughly. Her head was practically spinning. It had been a long time since she felt speechless, and this went even beyond that.

She had always wanted the Master to take her hand. Now, the very moment it happened, she felt like she didn’t deserve it.

In all, escaping was easy – much easier than her usual adventures. It was with irony that they had parked their TARDISs in nearly the same spot. More ironic, however, was the Master dragging her to her own TARDIS first.

Mindlessly, she reached for her sonic located in its usual safe spot – third slot from the left – and without a second thought, released the Master from her. They both let the chain fall to the ground, and the Doctor was happy enough to kick it aside.

“Well,” He said, rubbing at his wrist as she did the same. “Hope to see you again in another thousand years, give or take. I would say-”

“I didn’t realize it wasn’t a game.” The Doctor said and regretted it the moment the words left her mouth. When would she ever be able not to talk?

He didn’t turn around, but he stopped just at the edge of her doorway.

“I thought, after… After Missy, that things would be different between us. At the very least, I thought I wouldn’t see you again. And then you show up, trying to hurt my friends, and I can’t help but think that it’s just like every other time. I _wanted_ it to be like every other time - the game we’ve been doing.”

Still, he didn’t move.

“I should have realized how...” _Lost, suicidal, crazed,_ “much you were hurting. But… I was so _angry._ This regeneration is _always_ angry… And you’re so good at hitting me where it hurts. You knew exactly what to do to get me there – to distract me enough to miss the point.”

“I wanted you to end it… I _needed_ you to end it.”

She didn’t have anything to say to that. Maybe he was right.

“Can we talk?” She asked him, not knowing what he wanted. Not even trying to guess. “Properly talk? Just you and me, like we used to?”

He turned around, again with a fury in his eyes.

“I know I don’t deserve that…” She found herself at a loss for words.

All she ever wanted was her friend back.

The Master turned his back on her, and she felt the air leave her lungs.

“Another day.” He answered, a hand pushed against her door, “I daresay I’ll let you pick the place.”

She watched with an unstoppable smile as he made his way out of her TARDIS.

Hope was a dangerous thing… But at least she had it.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been through work hell the past couple of weeks (unable to complete the last chapter of Ad Meloria), and online college has literally tried to murder me. So, my angst came out in this one, lol.
> 
> I saw a post about this on Tumblr! I really, really wish I saved it, but I totally forgot. Hopefully I did the idea justice.  
> Hope you enjoyed! HAPPY SPOOKY SEASON! <3


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